Super-Cannes

by J. G. Ballard

  ‘In his political office. Fontaine was planning to run as a deputy in the local elections.’

  ‘Not as a communist, I take it?’

  ‘More right-wing. In fact, so right-wing it’s off the scale.’

  ‘National Front?’

  ‘Closely linked.’ Halder smiled thinly. ‘Fontaine’s group targeted “social” opponents. Their identity photos covered the walls where he was shot. His blood was all over them. Greenwood had a nice sense of humour.’

  ‘“Social” opponents.’ I echoed Halder’s ironic stress. ‘Not rival candidates?’

  ‘More the people who might vote for them. People with faces they didn’t like.’

  ‘Darker faces? Maghrebians?’

  ‘Blacks, yellows, browns. Anything except pinko-grey. Faces like mine. People of the “other” side.’

  ‘Who might canvass and vote for left-wing candidates. How did Fontaine and his people target them? I take it they used market-research firms?’

  ‘Why bother? They saw them walking down the back streets in La Bocca and Mandelieu.’

  ‘But they had their photos? It sounds very professional.’

  ‘Mr Sinclair …’ Halder surveyed me patiently. ‘We’re talking about coolie labour – factory hands, van drivers, building-site workers. The photos in Fontaine’s office were taken after they were dead.’

  ‘After …? How did they die?’

  ‘All kinds of sudden ways. Traffic accidents, mostly. The back streets in La Bocca get very dark at night. It’s easy for a truck to swerve. There’s a squeal of tyres, and then the photoflash …’

  ‘Halder – you’ve seen this?’

  But Halder made no reply. He waved me away when I reached for the envelope of photographs. Since our arrival at the Bachelet house he had been trying to provoke me, but had succeeded only in provoking himself. He drummed at the gear lever, irritated that he had trapped himself within the loop of his own anger.

  ‘Last one …’ Halder turned off the avenue, so sharply that my head struck the window pillar. Without apology, he drove three hundred yards into the park, and stopped outside a dome-shaped building that housed the personnel department of Eden-Olympia. The ground-floor picture windows were filled with dioramas of lakeside apartments, and illuminated displays advertised vacancies for office juniors, cleaners and gardeners, the invisibles of Eden-Olympia, a population who left no shadows in the sun.

  A party of hopefuls, mostly Spanish women in their best formal wear, dismounted from a bus, awed by the silent perfection of this lake and forest world. Halder watched them file into the building, shaking his head with the weary tolerance of a veteran eyeing a squad of callow recruits.

  ‘Olga Carlotti …?’ I took the photograph from Halder. ‘She was director of personnel for the whole of Eden-Olympia. I assume Greenwood had no problems getting in to see her?’

  ‘A doctor in a white coat isn’t most people’s idea of a serial killer. The security men saw him cross the lobby and said he looked normal. The place was filled with ushers, applicants coming out of interview booths, clerks checking social-security references. He showed his pass and went straight up to her.’

  Death at Eden-Olympia seemed to come by flashlight, in the lens of a police photographer. Olga Carlotti lay across her desk, arms hanging loosely, ringed fingers almost touching the floor. She had been shot while inspecting a selection of passport-booth snaps. Blood from the bullet wound in the back of her head formed a mask of black lace across the features of a well-groomed Italian woman in her forties.

  A canted interior window looked down into the concourse below. The interview booths were empty, but a crowd of security guards, French police and office personnel stared up at the Carlotti office, watching the forensic team at work.

  ‘I’ve seen enough.’ Chilled by this last death, I handed the print back to Halder. ‘Let’s call it a day. Counting up all these murders is a nasty kind of arithmetic. Where were you at this time?’

  ‘9.45? Driving with Captain Kellerman to the Siemens building. An armed man had tried to slip through the entrance on the garage roof. Someone parking a car said he saw a doctor with a rifle.’

  ‘Greenwood? Did he enter the building?’

  ‘Briefly. He reached the lobby but ran off when the security men challenged him. By now the general alert had gone out.’

  Halder cruised along the central avenue, holding the Range Rover to the pace of a running man. For all his self-control, a fine sweat covered his amber skin, as if he were watching the murders inside his head and was even more disturbed by the replay.

  He turned onto an access road that led to the multistorey garage behind the Siemens building. He raised the sun visor and pointed to the roof.

  ‘There’s a footbridge from the top deck to the senior executive offices. Security is light – it’s a clever way to get in.’

  ‘Who was the target?’

  ‘No one knows – other companies share the building. Some president or CEO. We’ll go up.’

  ‘Halder, let’s give it a rest. I know what a garage roof looks like.’

  ‘This one is interesting …’

  Ignoring me, Halder entered the garage and accelerated sharply. He swung the heavy vehicle past the parked cars, like a mountaineer making his final assault on the summit. Sweat drenched his uniform shirt as he pumped the brake pedal and forced the engine to labour in low gear. I sensed that he needed the Range Rover’s howling supercharger to distract him from the private drama that had dogged him all afternoon.

  We emerged onto the roof and swerved around an electrician’s van that sat alone in the sun. Shielding my eyes, I thought of the white concrete searing Greenwood’s retinas as he stepped breathless from the staircase. Thirty feet away was the pedestrian bridge to the top three floors of the building.

  Halder switched off the engine and lay back in his seat. I stepped out, and waited for him to join me, but he was staring at the parapet to our right. I walked around the car and leaned against his windowsill.

  ‘So this is where it ended? Greenwood had killed seven people, and now he knew it was all over.’ I pointed to the digital security panel beside the entrance. ‘If the alert was on, his electronic pass-key wouldn’t have worked. How did he get into the lobby?’

  ‘He called someone he knew – a woman in one of the offices. She came down and let him through.’

  ‘Isn’t that strange? There was a killer on the loose.’

  ‘She didn’t know it was Greenwood. His name had only gone out to the security teams. Some people say she tried to calm him down.’

  ‘Brave woman. What was her name?’

  ‘Madame Delmas. Very brave – and lucky. Greenwood had problems with his rifle.’

  ‘He tried to shoot her?’

  ‘That’s what the security men said.’ Halder noticed a face watching us from a window and lowered his visor. ‘Greenwood was inside the lobby, trying to eject the empty magazine. When he put in a new clip the guards challenged him.’

  A uniformed security man appeared at the glass doors, reluctant to test the heat of the open roof. He raised a hand in a deferential salute, as if Halder were a minor celebrity.

  ‘You have an admirer,’ I commented. ‘In fact, you’re quite a star.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say so. The guards here panicked a little.’

  ‘But not you. So Greenwood backed away and disappeared into the garage, then somehow made his way to the villa?’

  ‘That’s it. End of story.’

  ‘Almost.’ I remembered the Riviera News transcript. ‘He had less than five minutes to reach the villa and start killing the hostages. How did he manage it?’

  Halder gestured evasively, trying to wipe the flood of sweat from his face and neck. ‘Who knows? Maybe he stole a car – the garage is full of them. People forget their keys in the ignition.’

  I waited for Halder to start the engine, but he seemed curiously reluctant to leave the roof. He stepped out and stared ston
ily at the glass curtain-walling, then walked towards the waist-high parapet. His fists were clenched at his sides, his shoulders braced so tightly that the sweat-drenched fabric of his shirt seemed about to split.

  He leaned against the parapet, dislodging flakes of white cement into the rain gutter. A few inches from his knee a hole had been crudely drilled into the parapet. A second puncture, like a crater on a lunar map, marked the cement a foot away.

  ‘Bullet holes …’ I joined Halder and pointed to the puncture points. A third aperture was filled with a plug of Ciment Fondu. I looked back at the entrance and imagined the disoriented guards opening fire at Greenwood as he ran to the stairs.

  ‘Halder, there was shooting here.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Halder watched me examine the bullet holes. ‘There was quite a firefight.’

  ‘Greenwood shot back?’

  ‘He got off a few rounds.’

  ‘Was he wounded?’

  ‘Wounded?’ Halder frowned at the sun, pondering the exact meaning of the term. ‘No, you couldn’t say he was wounded.’

  I knelt down, and with my fingers explored the rain gutter. The shallow gulley ran to a drainage vent six feet away. The zinc surface of the down-pipe gleamed in the sunlight among the debris of leaves and book matches.

  I felt the polished metal with my hand. The surface was covered by a hatchwork of lines incised by an abrading power tool. I remembered the concrete floor near the pumphouse of the swimming pool, marked by the same fine abrasions. The drainage vent had been carefully scoured, as if to erase the shadow of the desperate man who had paused here.

  ‘Mr Sinclair …’ Halder was standing close to me, a hand reaching for the parapet. ‘It’s getting hot out here …’

  The sweat streamed from his face and arms, as if his body was releasing all its fluids in an attempt to wash away a virulent toxin. He swayed from the parapet and searched for the Range Rover, ringing the ignition keys like a blind man with a bell.

  ‘Halder …?’

  ‘I’m ready. We’ll go now. Where’s the car?’

  ‘It’s there. In front of you.’

  I started to follow him, but his head was lolling on his shoulders. I could sense the roof deck tilting in his eyes while the paintwork of the Range Rover reached its melting point. Halder leaned against the car, his hands pressed to the hot surface as if sinking into soft tar.

  I opened the passenger door and stepped behind him, then caught his shoulders when he fainted into my arms.

  23

  The Confession

  ‘FRANK …? HEAD BETWEEN your knees … you’re fine now.’

  I drove the Range Rover onto the floor below, and stopped in the cool shadows among the parked cars. I steadied Halder against the seat, and let the icy breeze from the air-conditioning system play across his face.

  ‘Mr Sinclair …?’ With an effort he focused his eyes. ‘I blacked out for a few seconds. Was it hot up there?’

  ‘Like a furnace.’ I searched for a radiophone. ‘I’ll call for a paramedic.’

  ‘No.’ Halder took the phone from me. ‘I need a minute to cool off. I guess too much light on anything isn’t a good idea.’

  He grimaced to himself, accepting the embarrassment he had caused. The roof had been hot, but repressed emotions had played a stronger role. I waited as Halder recovered his poise, and thought of the bullet holes in the parapet.

  David Greenwood’s murder spree had ended on the exposed deck above our heads, when a faulty magazine had saved the Frenchwoman from becoming his last, unintended victim. The clocks in Eden-Olympia had stopped for two hours as the deranged doctor moved on, rifle in hand, the silence of death around him. When he killed his victims he had probably heard nothing, not even the shots from his rifle. But on the roof of the car park a nervous guard had returned fire, and then Greenwood was back in real time, the sounds of police sirens and helicopters filling his head.

  Halder adjusted the air-conditioning fan, and watched the sweat evaporate from his shirt. Trying to recover his self-possession, he removed the keys from the ignition lock. He waited for me to leave the driving seat, but I sat back, my hands gripping the wheel.

  ‘Frank, you’ve been a huge help. Showing me the route in detail, and the scene-of-the-crime photos. It was good of you, but why do it?’

  ‘I liked Greenwood. It’s as simple as that. I wanted you to see it all from his point of view. Something happened on May 28, something that wasn’t right.’

  ‘And affected you badly. That’s what our tour has really been about – you, not Greenwood.’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Zander knows you’re here. He authorized the photographs.’

  ‘Zander and Dr Penrose.’

  ‘Why Penrose?’

  ‘He was interested to see how you’d react. Looking the truth in the face, not some fantasy garbled together from rumours and maids’ gossip.’

  ‘So they assigned you to keep an eye on me. When did this start?’

  ‘After you went to Riviera News. The manager’s secretary called us. I was to pick you up there.’

  ‘So that’s why Meldrum kept me talking. You followed me to Antibes-les-Pins and Port-la-Galère. I’m surprised I didn’t see you.’

  ‘Among all those chic suntans? Not so chic as mine.’ Halder patted his cheeks, trying to force the blood into his face. ‘I parked on the corniche road. A security man tipped me off when you were leaving. He used to work at Eden-Olympia.’

  ‘And now he’s keeping an eye on the widows. Making sure they don’t talk too much to amateur detectives. But why trail me to the Rue Valentin? Zander didn’t know I’d be there.’

  ‘I was working in my own time, Mr Sinclair. I heard from the other guards that a special action was booked for last night. I was concerned for you. When you took off after the girl I thought you might get into trouble.’

  ‘I did. I can still feel the truncheons …’ I felt my bruised shoulder, wondering how to explain to Halder the confusions of middle-aged sexual nostalgia. ‘What were Zander and his posse doing in the Rue Valentin? Anything involved with David Greenwood?’

  ‘Nothing. The Rue Valentin is one of their favourite workouts. They can beat the shit out of a few whores and transvestites and feel good about it. I guess that’s better than raping the Third World.’

  ‘That sounds a little harsh. You don’t much like Eden-Olympia. Why not make things up with your father and go home?’

  ‘Home?’ Halder turned to stare at me, as if I had announced that the earth was flat. ‘America isn’t my home. My mother comes from Stuttgart. I’m German. Do you know Germany, Mr Sinclair?’

  ‘I was stationed at Mülheim for three months. A great country. The future is going to be like a suburb of Stuttgart.’

  ‘Don’t knock it. I had a great time there. My mother worked at the base PX. The Air Force looked after her when my old man left for the States. He denied paternity and resigned his commission. I was friends with all the American kids and went to the base school until some of the parents complained. My mother really scared hell out of the general’s wife.’

  ‘She sounds a character.’

  ‘One tough German Frau. The last of the old-style hippies. She taught me to masturbate when I was twelve, and how to roll a joint. I want her to come out here as soon as I get promotion.’

  ‘I’m sure you will. They treat you with a lot of respect.’

  ‘I want more. Places like Eden-Olympia have very high estimates of people. That means something when you’re at the bottom of the ladder.’

  ‘Remember that when you reach the top. All that rarefied air. There must be a temptation to feel like God.’

  ‘God?’ Halder smiled into his elegant hands. ‘The people here have gone beyond God. Way beyond. God had to rest on the seventh day.’

  ‘So how do they keep sane?’

  ‘Not so easy. They have one thing to fall back on.’

  ‘And that is?’

  �
�Haven’t you guessed, Mr Sinclair?’ Halder spoke softly but with genuine concern, as if all our time together, the extended seminar he had been conducting with full visual aids, had been wasted on this obtuse Englishman. ‘Madness – that’s all they have, after working sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. Going mad is their only way of staying sane.’

  ‘And Eden-Olympia is happy with that?’

  ‘As long as they stay well outside the business park. In fact, it does everything it can to help …’

  After exchanging seats, we left the garage. I told Halder that I would walk back across the park, half-hoping that I might find some clue to Greenwood’s return route. Halder drove at a cautious pace down the spiral ramp, but I hesitated before stepping from the car.

  ‘Halder – you’re safe to drive? Think of that promotion.’

  ‘It was hot on the roof, Mr Sinclair. I humiliated myself a little. That’s all. I can give you a lift.’

  ‘I’ll walk. There’s a lot to think about, most of it grim.’ I gazed at the lines of office buildings rising from the park like megaliths of the future. ‘Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse – I’m sorry David Greenwood wasn’t happy here.’

  ‘He was pretty confused. At the end all his shadows ran up to greet him.’

  ‘Even so.’ Reluctant to leave Halder, I pointed to the manila envelope. ‘I don’t think he was confused. Those pictures show the murders were very carefully planned. Greenwood must have guessed that the victims would be photographed. Each murder scene is a kind of tableau. Bachelet with his crack pipe and stolen jewellery. Berthoud with his suitcase of heroin. Vadim and the kiddie porn. Each photograph isn’t Greenwood’s crime scene – it’s theirs.’

  ‘Kiddie porn, drugs, fascist ideas… not exactly serious crimes these days.’

  ‘But serious enough. And only the tip visible above the water. These bowling clubs, and the road accidents … something deeply criminal has taken root here. The senior people at Eden-Olympia think they’re lords of the chateau, free to ride out and trample down the peasantry for their own amusement.’

  ‘You’re wrong, Mr Sinclair.’